Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement on the decision by the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell to continue subsidies for people enrolled in the federal exchange operated by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“I commend the Supreme Court for upholding access to health care for millions of Americans. The decision conformed with a basic principle of statutory construction, that the meaning of each provision of a law depends on the entirety of the law. As a member of the House of Representatives who voted for the Affordable Care Act, I know that we wanted the law to work for American families, both in states-based health care exchanges, as in New York, and in the federal health care exchange operated by the Department of Health and Human Services. A majority of the Supreme Court understood that too. The premium subsidies were created to allow every family to have access to high-quality health care. These subsidies have worked. Indeed, in many instances, families and individuals who have enrolled in health insurance plans have received subsidies that provide for more than half the cost of their premiums. People in the thirty-four states that have not yet established state-based health care exchanges will now continue to have access to affordable, comprehensive health care choices as a result of this decision. This decision will, I believe, finally provide the American people with the certainty that these choices will always exist.”

Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the House of Representatives, a member of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, and the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, as well as the Committee on Ethics and the Committee of Small Business. She represents many neighborhoods in central and southern Brooklyn, NY which include Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, parts of Park Slope and Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.